When pool-goers returned to the Landrex Water Play Centre in Servus Credit Union Place after its weeklong closure for maintenance, they were pleasantly surprised to have the city’s newest piece of public art on the wall to delight them as they swam.
The project, called Through the Tides, consists of 106 separate tiled fish produced and installed by former resident Claire Uhlick. Now based out of Edmonton, the potter is relieved to be able to rejoice in her accomplishment and relax on solid ground again.
She was supposed to finish up the work on Friday but something was fishy. Maybe it had to do with working with some unpleasant chemicals and power tools for 14 hours a day on a lift.
“I was so, so sick,” she admitted. “I got up on the lift and went, ‘Oh, this isn’t good’.”
This resulted in what might have been the first instance of a lifeguard responding when the pool wasn’t even open. Uhlick took ill and needed to lie down. Despite her strongest wishes to finish caulking up the pieces with industrial sealant and be done with the labour-intensive effort, she ended up having to come back for the last touches and touch-ups of paint on Saturday.
Now that it’s fully installed, she can relax, step back and enjoy the view.
“It actually looks really sharp,” she admitted. “I’m thrilled that it’s done.”
Through the Tides took months of planning and toil even before she started affixing the tiles to a 1.82m by 8.84m (six-feet by 29-feet) section of the wall. The project was budgeted at $17,425. She said it sounds like a lot of money but actually works out to be a lot less if you factor in all of the time that she has spent on it over the last six months.
“It was a big feat. [Gazette photographer Chris Colbourne] asked me how many hours. I said, ‘I don’t know. A lot’! My dad thought it was about two months’ full-time work. That didn’t sound like much. It was more than that! It’s hard to say."
This is the artist’s second public art commission and her scale is increasing. The first one was a smaller mixed media piece only 1.82m by 4.88m (six-feet by 16-feet) set up in the Van Vliet Centre at the University of Alberta three years ago. She takes these assignments as great challenges that do much for her artistic career.
“It’s a pretty important thing to get. It was a great experience for me as an artist. I learned a ton of stuff actually making the piece. I feel like this whole project has been a really good learning curve in budgeting, in time management, in different technical skills that I’ve picked up along the way. Of course, it always looks good for other things that I apply for. ‘Look what I’ve done’!”
